Setting up a RVM, Ruby, Rails, Bundle, Git and Ubuntu Development Environment

Not tested yet - may be incomplete

I’ve got a new laptop, so I thought I’d share what I do to set up my development environment, to make it easier for me next time, and to help you out…

I created these notes while doing the setup, but I have not yet had a chance to review or test them (I’ll do that the next time I set up an Ubuntu development computer). In the mean time, please excuse any errors or omissions (or better yet, let me know in the comments)

1. Install Ubuntu

I chose Ubuntu 14.04 LTS this time.

2. Install git

sudo apt-get install git

Add username + email for git, as prompted the first time you try to use git:

git config --global user.name "Peter Pan"
git config --global user.email "peter@neverland.com"

3. SSH Keys are required to connect to github

Follow instructions here to generate and add a key: help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys/

4. Clone a repo into a new folder

git clone git@github.com:avjaarsveld/avjaarsveld.github.io.git avjaarsveld.github.io

5. Install Bundler (and Rails, MySQL, etc)

To get Rails (and MySQL) installed you could install Bundler and then used it to install Rails and other gems using bundle install, as shown below. This works great if you only have one Rails project on your computer (or if all your Rails projects use exactly the same gem set.

If, like me, you have multiple projects with different gems, using different version of Rails, you’ll need RVM. I installed Rails via RVM (after installing RVM) and installed MySQL separately. This is how:

Install RVM

Follow the latests instructions on railsapps.github.io and/or rvm.io/rvm/install

If you have Ruby already installed, you do not need to remove it, RVM will leave it untouched.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install curl

gpg --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 409B6B1796C275462A1703113804BB82D39DC0E3

That last command seemed to fail with the following error, but I was able to continue with the installation:

gpg: requesting key D39DC0E3 from hkp server keys.gnupg.net
gpg: keyserver timed out
gpg: keyserver receive failed: keyserver error

\curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash

source /home/albert/.rvm/scripts/rvm

Install a version of Ruby

rvm install 1.9.3

The above installs a specific version. rvm install 1.8.7-p374 installs a specific version and patchlevel. rvm install ruby --latest installs the latest version.

Create a Gemset for installed Ruby version

rvm use 1.8.7-p374@my-project --create

See rvm.io/gemsets/creating for more options.

rvm --ruby-version use 2.2.0
# OR rvm --ruby-version use 2.0.0@my-project

Optionally add rvm 1.8.7-p374@my-project to your .rvmrc file instead of using a .ruby-version and .ruby-gemset file as shown above. See rvm.io/workflow/projects for more details.

Install Bundler (and Rails, MySQL, etc)

Install Bundler and then used it to install Rails and other gems using bundle install (this is not nessesary if you’ve already installed RVM, etc as shown above)

sudo apt-get install bundler

Install gems listed in Gemfile:

bundle install

Check bundler is working:

bundle -v or bundle exec rails s or bundle exec jekyll serve

More Customization

Git Aliases

Add a simple alias (and create the .gitconfig file if it’s not already created) with git config --global alias.st status

Edit .gitconfig and add any other aliases you’d like to use, like:

st = status
l = log
uncommit = !git reset --soft 'HEAD^' && echo '' && git status
sreset = !git uncommit

# Add All and Commit
aac = !echo "Enter commit message:" && read MSG && echo "" && echo "Status before chagnes:" && echo "======================" && git status && echo "" && echo "Adding all..." && echo "=============" && git add . && echo "" && echo "Committing..." && echo "=============" && git commit -m \"$MSG\" && echo "" && echo "New status:" && echo "===========" && git status

# Commit with bumped Version number
cv = !git commit -m \"Bumped to version $(head -n 1 VERSION)\"

# Add All and Commit with bumpted Version number
aacv = !echo "Status before chagnes:" && echo "======================" && git status && echo "" && echo "Adding all..." && echo "=============" && git add . && echo "" && echo "Committing..." && echo "=============" && git commit -m \"Bumped to version $(head -n 1 VERSION)\" && echo "" && echo "New status:" && echo "===========" && git status

See this article for some good advice RE Git Aliases.

ZSH (Command Alisases)

After installing ZSH, you may want to add some aliases here too, like alias edit="subl --wait --new-window"

Open .zshrc (subl ~/.zshrc), add the above mentioned alias to the alias section, save, close and run . ~/.zshrc to update the terminal. Now you can use edit ~/.gitconfig etc to open files or folders in Sublime.